Isabelle noticed that Mrs. Adams's eyes glowed, as she gazed at the man.
"I sent in my resignation last week."
"Getting ready for the public platform?" some one suggested. "You won't find much enthusiasm for those sentiments; wages are too high!"
There was a moment of unpleasant silence. The Kentuckian raised his head as if to retort, then collected himself, and remarked meekly:—
"Pardon me, Mrs. Lane, this is not the occasion for such a discussion. I was carried away by my feelings. Sometimes the real thought will burst out."
The apology scarcely bettered matters, and Isabelle's response was flat.
"I am sure it is always interesting to hear both sides."
"But I can't see that to a good citizen there can be two sides to the lamentable massacre of our President," the Senator said severely. "I had the privilege of knowing our late President intimately, and I may say that I never knew a better man,—he was another Lincoln!"
"I don't see where Mr. Darnell can find this general discontent," the Vice-president of the A. and P. put in suavely. "The country has never been so prosperous as during the McKinley-Hanna regime,—wages at the high level, exports increasing, crops abundant. What any honest and industrious man has to complain of, I can't see. Why, we are looking for men all the time, and we can't get them, at any price!"
"'Ye shall not live by bread alone,'" Darnell muttered. It was a curious remark for a dinner-party, Isabelle thought. Mrs. Adams's lips curled as if she understood it. But now that the fiery lawyer had taken to quoting the Bible no one paid any further attention to him, and the party sank back into little duologues appropriate to the occasion. Later Bessie confessed to Isabelle that she had been positively frightened lest the Kentuckian would do "something awful,"—he had been drinking, she thought. But Darnell remained silent for the brief time before the ladies left the room, merely once raising his eyes apologetically to Isabelle with his wine-glass at his lips, murmuring so that she alone could hear him,—"I drink to the gods of Prosperity!" She smiled back her forgiveness. He had behaved very badly, almost wrecked her successful dinner; but somehow she could not dislike him. She did not understand what he was saying or why he should say it when people were having a good time; but she felt it was part of his interesting and uncertain nature….